I had the same problem with MechWarrior2:Mercs. The compatibility mode hard ever seems to work. I don't have room on my hd for dual boot, so I ended up just selling the game instead (and bought like ten newer games)

if u have a friend with win98 get your drive there and install the game to your drive and install all patches and a no cd crack
then u wont be able to have a prob...i had the same prob with star wars episode 1 racer